We’re now 66, without my Ardens, and probably need to announce an extension to the library …
I decided, for this update, to include texts that I don’t physically possess. It felt like cheating, it felt like a betrayal of my books, but it also felt like the right thing to do …
Why?
Because I had to think about the various purposes of the bookshelf. It might hopefully give some help to someone looking for sources but increasingly, I rely on it as a kind of bibliography – very much giving credit where credit is due to everyone that has influenced my thoughts on Shakespeare’s works. To that extent, if it isn’t as complete as reasonably possible, it isn’t honest.
I haven’t gone entirely mad, listing individual websites, dictionaries, podcasts, etc – but I have included full texts which I don’t physically own but HAVE read, such as King James I‘s Daemonologie, which I only own as a kindle version. How can I write anything when Macbeth comes up and not acknowledge that it has influenced my ideas? Or dismiss the sublime words of ‘Gorgeous’ George Carleton (delineating the various popish plots between Elizabeth I‘s ascension to the throne and the Gunpowder Plot) in talking about the role of religion in any of the plays – simply because I only have a facsimile I downloaded from www.archive.org? It’s not just gorgeous Arden Thirds or Folio Society editions …
So, whilst it isn’t quite a ‘links’ page, and I hope it never evolves into one, I felt I should add an additional virtual shelf – as well as the additional physical shelf which is so very desparately needed at the moment!
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 